29 January 2009

Wrong side of bed

I woke up in a really bad mood today. I don't think it's for any particular reason, I just woke up thinking "I can't be bothered with any of it today". I wonder why you just wake up like that sometimes? On this occasion it's probably related to work being consistently dull at the moment, and I knew I had a couple of annoying emails to deal with when I got in, and I hadn't had enough sleep. And then even getting to work involved sitting on a horrible bus with small seats that hurt my knees listening to annoying schoolchildren making too much noise.

Well anyway, I've cheered up a bit now. Someone sent me this link, described as the best complaint letter of all time, and that helped because I nearly wet myself.

I had quite a long phone conversation with Mum on Tuesday (probably another reason for my plummeting mood) in which she complained about how infrequently my brother calls home. To be honest, I'm not that surprised; it is depressing to call her. There's always something that's gone wrong or something that's stressing her out, and I can't remember the last time she said "yes I've had a nice day thanks". Plus Dave works a lot so doesn't have much time for calling her, and she'll never call him because she's "waiting to see how long it'll be before he calls". So no wonder she never speaks to him.

She's started to stress a bit about his wedding now, as May is creeping up quite quickly. She knows she won't be able to manage sitting in a room of 100 people eating a two hour meal, but that it's not going to be as easy for her to slip out as it was at our wedding. And when I talked to Dave about it, he said (rather unhelpfully) "I hope she's not going to be going in and out during the meal". Of course she's going to be doing that, if she's even there at all! It's surprising how little he understands, even after seven years of her being ill. It's because he thinks it's mostly in her head anyway, which partly it may well be because she makes herself feel ill with her anxiety and stress.

So anyway, I had to try to convey to him that we don't live in an ideal world where she's not ill and will happily sit at the top table for two hours or more and everyone will have a lovely time. It's just not going to happen, so they're going to have to find a compromise. I don't know why it's got anything to do with me at all really, but of course it does because I'm de facto mediator and everyone looks expectantly to me for bright ideas and to fix it all. I'd also quite like to enjoy the wedding myself though!

I better read that complaint letter again, I've depressed myself now...

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